No doubt that politics bore many--but they're not the people I'm wondering about. I'm wondering about the folks who are not only able to handle complex concepts, etc., in their work or leisure, but who also *claim* to be interested the political, follow it avidly, but go no further than certain received ideas--usually, alas, from Limbaugh or O'Reilly--or now Glenn Reynolds and his ilk.
Statistic: the Project on International Policy Attitudes released a bulletin back in June that reported among Republicans *who claimed to follow international affairs very closely*, 55% said that WMDs had been found in Iraq. These are folks who report that they're _interested_ and that they follow the news closely, and they've got something pretty basic very wrong. (See http://pipa.org/whatsnew/html/new_6_04_03.html for the press release--right hand side of the page.) These are the people I wonder about. So the question: how to account for this?
Once upon a time I would have said something about such people having their ideological blinders wrapped pretty tightly about their heads. Now I figure that's just stating the problem in different terms.
I work with guys and gals like this. Nice people face to face, capable of complex balancing acts in their work and hobbies but who descend to simplistic or even depraved positions when it comes to politics. I don't get it.
Whatever. I'm certainly not going to be able to figure it out, and it's late.
Curtiss
>It bores them. Most of us would be bored of a
>listserv in which the people wrote back and forth all
>day about their stamp collections (I would). Well,
>believe it or not, a lot of people would find all of
>our political chatter just as boring, if not more
>boring. As much as I like Chomsky, I found his
>statement to reveal a certain self-absorption.
>Somebody should let him in on another secret: most
>people are bored silly by discussions of "deep"
>grammar as well.
>Thomas
>
>=====
><<You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals
>So let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel>>
>
>Bloodhound Gang, "The Bad Touch"
>
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